


Fall in Chocolate

by factorielle



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-04
Updated: 2010-07-04
Packaged: 2017-10-10 09:26:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/factorielle/pseuds/factorielle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The rules applicable on Valentine's Day offer no provisions for two boys dating each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fall in Chocolate

February has always been a stressful time to Mizutani. In the weeks leading up to Valentine's Day, it's all he can think about: how many chocolates will he get? Will he have any less than his teammates, his classmates, his friends? Will a girl confess to him, and will he know how to respond without making an ass of himself?

The rules are straightforward enough. Girls offer chocolates to guys on Valentine's Day, and guys return the present on White Day. It's a time for confessions and reinforcement of existing relationships. Easy.

The rules, he discovers in the end of his second year in high school, _suck_. Nowhere do they cover the part where it's a guy he's going out with, and he has no idea what that means in terms of exchange of chocolaty goodness.

This is usually the kind of thing one would talk over with one's best friend. Only, in this case, the unfortunate overlap prevents him from even mentioning the topic.

What is he supposed to do? Ignoring it completely seems wrong: just because they're keeping it mostly secret and never actually talked about their relationship doesn't mean it isn't one. He knows that, the same way he knew it wasn't the case a year ago. But offering a gift on Valentine's Day would imply that he thinks of himself as a girl, whereas waiting for White Day would imply that he thinks of _Izumi_ as a girl. Neither is a viable option: the former is too humiliating, and the latter would probably get him killed.

To stick to the rules, he would have to give something on White Day that would be received a month earlier. Given that he doesn't own a time machine, the natural option seems to be to use a girl for a proxy, who could give Izumi chocolates and wait for a month to be compensated for it. Mizutani toys with the idea of asking Shinooka to help him with this for a solid week before he decides that considering their history, she'd be too likely to think of it as an elaborate and contemptible plan for him to give her a White Day present.

Meanwhile, Izumi doesn't look particularly concerned about the upcoming holiday, but it's not like he ever looks concerned about anything much. Which is something that Mizutani always thought was kind of cool, but is a little irritating when he's getting desperate enough to consider asking _Abe_ for help.

It could work, too. Abe has the analytic mind to find the loophole that has to be in the rules somewhere. Only, Mizutani is pretty sure that he doesn't want Abe to know about the going out with Izumi thing, and he also has this disturbing ability to see through sentences that begin with "I have this friend, you see, who has a problem". So that's out, too.

Tajima, on the other hand, does know. It's kind of risky but Mizutani asks him anyway, after making him swear up and down that he won't tell, write or otherwise hint about this to anyone, not even Mihashi and especially not Izumi.

"Give him a blowjob" is Tajima's suggestion. It might even have been an option despite the complete lack of chocolate, but they already sleep over at each other's place at least three times a month and someone is inevitably going to become suspicious if Mizutani suddenly decides to invite Izumi over in the middle of the week on _Valentine's Day_. And the near-miss with Shigapo in the clubroom before Christmas made it clear that doing anything of that sort away from the privacy of their own bedrooms was out of the question until their mental recovery.

It's a shame, though.

Mizutani's last resort is to fake sick on that day, just to avoid the problem altogether. But Momokan would know. He has no idea how or why, but she would _know_. And then he'd be dead.

Lost in the agony of making a decision, he misses his chance to go shopping the week-end before V-Day and gets taken by surprise, chocolate-less, on the morning of February 14.

Late for class, too. Which may or may not have been accidental.

He gets his scolding from the teacher in first period and his first chocolates from Shinooka at recess. It's a dozen homemade balls the size of cherries, ranging from dark to pure white, wrapped in a transparent bag with a thin red line curling all around it. He's glad, if not surprised, to find that his smile when he thanks her is perfectly genuine this time around.

The bundle is exactly identical to the ones Abe and Hanai get; there are several more of those in the extra bag she's brought to class, and he can't help but notice that there's an elegant box in there as well, with a small bow on a corner. That keeps him distracted until lunch, busy as he is wondering if Shinooka is planning to confess to someone. The idea doesn't make Mizutani apprehensive anymore, but he'd still like to be sure that she picked a guy better suited to her this time.

According to the tacit schedule, it would be his turn to wander by class 2-9 for lunch, but the school's underground rules have the members of all popular sports teams stay in their respective classrooms at lunchtime on Valentine's. Navigating the corridors on this day is already a pain: if the girls have to run around looking for people it becomes ten times worse, so the guys try to stay put. It's sensible on paper, but this means that he's not going to see Izumi until afternoon practice, which is only a mixed blessing.

Mizutani pokes at his lunch without enthusiasm, finding more interest in Abe's attempts to be graceful about getting chocolates from girls he clearly doesn't remember, and in typing an email that he deletes half a dozen times, chiding himself for being pathetic. It's only a few hours until practice; he can wait until then. Meanwhile, there are a couple of girls looking for him, too, providing a welcome distraction.

Tallying his own loot at the end of lunch break, he decides that it's looking like a pretty decent year. All of it is from classmates and cheerleaders and the likes, but the pile of confectionery should keep him going for the next three weeks at least. That's what he tries to focus on as the afternoon classes start, because otherwise he's going to have to remember that he still doesn't know if showing up without anything to commemorate their first Valentine's together is okay.

But anxiety and doubt have never stopped time. Eventually, even history class has to end.

Mizutani is about to head to the clubroom when Hanai nudges him, points at a girl who's standing at the entrance of the classroom and keeps glancing their way.

"Me?" Mizutani mouths. Abe rolls his eyes, Hanai nods, and Shinooka smiles at him encouragingly before sauntering out.

The girl is in his year, Mizutani knows. That much is easy to remember, because he's seen her a hundred times while having lunch in Izumi's class. For a moment he wonders if maybe he wasn't the only who thought of using a proxy, but she looks so intimidated that he crosses out that option pretty quickly.

This is legit. Shit.

What happens next is what he's always known should happen: she presents him with a small box of expensive-looking chocolates along with a tiny envelope, mumbles something about hoping he can consider, and disappears so fast he thinks she must be in the track team, or maybe the ninja club.

The letter, too, is what he's imagined it would be, albeit with fewer doodles of hearts and flowers. She's been watching him for a long time, it says, and she thinks he's amazing and funny and handsome and she even went to every game in summer just to watch him play.

He's seventeen and it's his first confession, from a cute girl who's liked him for at least half a year.

He's been waiting for this moment his entire life, and it _sucks_.

He stares at the letter for what feels like long minutes, then puts it back in its envelope, slips it with the rest of the chocolates and runs to the clubroom, where his teammates are comparing loot. Judging from the bits of conversations he hears on his way to the door, Tajima has the most, as expected; everyone else's is more or less equal.

Abe, it appears, has confiscated most of Mihashi's chocolate on account of it being unhealthy; Mizutani enters the room just in time to see Izumi bubbling with barely-contained irritation at this abuse of the catcher's authority. That calls for a diversion, and fast, because he knows for a fact that Izumi doesn't really want to snap at Abe, even when he _really wants_ to snap at Abe.

"I got confessed to!" Mizutani blurts out, and mentally smacks himself before he's finished the sentence. _Good one, Fumiki. Distract your boyfriend from his murderous rage by boasting that a girl likes you. Real smooth._

"Really? Who was it?" Sakaeguchi demands, turning to him so fast he must have given himself whiplash.

Mizutani tries to answer but realizes he doesn't even know the girl's name (did she even sign the letter?) just as Izumi pulls his shirt on and drops "Ikeda, right?"

That, for some reason, gets more of a reaction than his own announcement. "Izumi, you knew about this?" Sakaeguchi asks, appalled that he didn't get this piece of juicy information in advance.

"I-Ikeda-san?" Mihashi asks from the other side of the room. Mizutani catches Tajima with a hand in Abe's bag when he glances that way, and looks away before Abe reads it on his face.

"It's not like she confided in me," Izumi answers with a shrug. "I just noticed her staring a couple of times, and she seemed to be in a hurry to leave class earlier."

Sakaeguchi seems satisfied with that answer, even though Mizutani really isn't. He wouldn't have expected a full-on catfight for his affection in the corridors, but would a little advance warning have been too much?

"How did it go? Are you going out with her?"

Mizutani opens his mouth right as his boyfriend breezes past him and opens the door. Stung, he glances at Tajima, but his only potential ally is too busy liberating Mihashi's chocolates to pay attention to him.

"I haven't answered yet," Mizutani says when the door latch clicks. Sakaeguchi must have picked up something in his tone, because he doesn't push any further.

Out on the field, Izumi pairs up with Tajima for stretching. It's not a rare event, as such. They're not so desperate that they need to spend every minute of practice together, and it would be kind of suspicious on top of being pathetic. But usually there'd be something: a look, a smile, a couple of words.

Not today, though, so Mizutani grabs Mihashi's arm and takes him to the other side of the field and stretches like he's never stretched before, ignoring Mihashi's anxious glances his way.

The rest of practice is spent with gritted teeth, focusing so hard on every exercise that he feels every muscle burn by the time Hanai calls for a break. Shinooka goes around the field offering her onigiri and bright smiles. When she comes up to him he grabs two, but his stomach lurches unpleasantly and for a moment he thinks he might throw up, just thinking about having food.

She glances at him when he puts them back on the tray, a question in her eyes that she won't ask aloud. He tries to smile, but gives up on the attempt when it makes her look even more concerned. "The others are waiting," he tells her instead, trying to keep his voice steady and failing miserably.

Shinooka looks like she's about to say something, but in the end all she does is nod and head toward the bench where Oki and Nishihiro are taking turns drinking from an iced tea bottle. A year ago, Mizutani would have died for her to be this concerned for him, and now all he can do is watch her leave and wonder if things weren't easier when all he could do was yearn for her from afar.

Momokan takes him aside at the end of practice, to congratulate him on his concentration and efforts. He feels like a giant fraud when she grins at him, wondering aloud what fuelled his determination and if it could be applied to the other players.

He opens his mouth and the words that threaten to come out are none about baseball and all about how this is his first Valentine's day as part of a couple and it's turning out to be the most disastrous ever because his boyfriend is being a jerk, and he doesn't know if he even has a boyfriend anymore anyway even though he didn't do anything wrong.

He bites it all down, bows and thanks her, and drags his feet back to the clubroom.

He passes Hanai and Oki on his way there, waves them goodnight. Tajima and Mihashi, too, when he walks down the stairs, and Tajima throws him a look that he can't even decipher. In the clubroom, it's mostly first years who've had to wait until their upperclassmen had changed before getting their turn. Suyama's still in there; Izumi and his bags are nowhere to be seen.

Mizutani changes without a word and leaves as quickly as possible, clutching the bag of chocolates so tight that his nails dig hard into his palms. It's getting colder outside, what little warmth the ground soaked from the dim sun evaporating after sunset. His jacket is warm, but even wrapping it tight around his body doesn't help much and he's already shivering by the time he gets to the bike rack.

There's no other bike there than his; it was his only hope to get to school on time, but every one else prefers to come by train in winter. He drops his bags and fumbles at the lock, curses under his breath when one of its wheels refuses to move.

"Here, let me." Familiar hands pull the lock from him, fiddle with it for a couple of seconds before it comes open. Izumi hands it to him and takes a step back, saying no more.

"Thanks." He should say something else but all he wants to do is yell, so maybe it's better if he just rides off and tries to forget this day ever happened. Maybe he'll wake up and find it was all a bad dream and it's Valentine's Day again and he can start over.

And probably make every mistake he's managed to miss this time around.

What a stupid, stupid day.

"So, how _did_ it go?"

Mizutani looks up, makes eye contact for the first time today. It's a relief, in a way, but it also makes him even more angry because Izumi doesn't even look as bothered as when he was trying not to blow up at Abe. "She didn't give me time to answer," he says, not daring to look away.

Izumi nods, as though it's a proper answer, and smiles thinly. "Do you have some time? I need to talk to you."

How easily he says that, as if they haven't been ignoring each other through three hours of practice. "Yeah, sure." It's not like the day can get any worse.

They take the bike to the nearest bench, sit down with either too much or not enough space between them. Either way, it's not comfortable.

"I told Ikeda to go for it," Izumi says, looking straight ahead.

Mizutani's mouth goes dry. Did he really think it couldn't get worse? Really, was he stupid enough to believe that? "Why?" he croaks out.

"You said you'd never been confessed to." He did, didn't he? Mizutani remembers that day with crisp precision: the incomprehension and heartbreak over the way Shinooka looked at Abe, and the small comfort of the ramen bowl in front of him as Izumi let him talk his heart out. But that was over a year ago. That was _before_.

"I saw her staring at you for weeks, every time you came in the room. She always looked like she wanted to come over, so I tried to encourage her a little, to let her know none of us were scary." He pauses, fingers knitting together in front of him, staring down at the ground. Mizutani leans back on the bench, until all he can see of him is his hunched back, the spot down his neck where his hair parts to expose skin. "But she never even tried to talk to you, so by the time we..." He trails off, as they always seem to do every time it comes to defining... things. Takes a deep breath. "If I'd known she was going to bide her time that long I wouldn't have encouraged her."

_That long?_ "When was that?"

Izumi glances over his shoulder. "April, I think? When you started coming over for lunch all the time."

Which he remembers, too, even if it feels roughly like forever ago. "But that was... before," he says cautiously, seeing maybe a glimmer of hope in this crappy situation.

That makes Izumi turn all the way to look at him, frowning. "Obviously," he says, in his best talking-to-idiots voice. "Why would I egg her on when we're--" His expression turns suspicious. "Wait, did you think I was..."

"No!" Mizutani protests. "Of course not. Why would I. What are you thinking. Not at all."

Izumi looks just a little amused for a second. "Good, then." Then he straightens, leans back; ends up a little closer to Mizutani than before. "I was really angry at myself when I found out she'd gone to you after all. She's a nice girl. She didn't deserve to be led on like that." Then, when Mizutani laughs, "what?"

"You're such a good guy. I don't understand why you try to hide it."

"Shut up." Izumi makes to punch his arm, but Mizutani grabs his sleeve before impact, tugs him closer.

They're not supposed to do this, not in public, even less on school grounds, but there's nobody left here and right now he doesn't care about the unspoken rules.

He's not the only one, and that's as much a relief as the rest of the conversation: the ease with which Izumi's lips part for him, the soft sigh, the hand laid on his thigh for support. It's so good, maybe one of their top five kisses; Mizutani has a list, which he likes to replay in great detail sometimes when he's by himself, and it definitely needs to be updated to make way for this.

He pulls away, though, to whisper a question because there's no reason why he should be the only one to get so upset. "Aren't you worried that I'll go out with her after all?"

It takes Izumi a long time to answer, but he stays close, his forehead pressed against Mizutani's. "I'm trying not to be," he whispers.

"I'll let her down easy," Mizutani promises, and steals one last kiss before pulling back for real just as his stomach emits a loud growl. "Today sucked," he informs his boyfriend, because most of it was his fault in the first place. "And I'm hungry."

"You never lose track of your priorities, do you?" Izumi asks with a snort. He grabs his school bag, starts rummaging inside. "But that's why I like you. Here."

Mizutani blinks, looks at the slim package that was dropped his hand. It's a little bit crushed on one side, like something heavier fell on it. Like it's been in that bag all day, or maybe longer. He opens it blindly as he looks back up. Izumi is very deliberately staring into the distance, and while it's impossible to tell for sure in the dark, Mizutani could swear that he's blushing a little.

His hand is still laying on the bench between them, so Mizutani grabs it, interlaces the tip of their fingers. "I guess it didn't suck that much after all," he says brightly.

Then he pulls back, grins at the world and everything in it, and bites into the chocolate bar.


End file.
